Opportunities and impediments of bond market development in Bangladesh

Abstract

The easiest way of collecting long-term fund for financing Government and non- Government projects is the issuing of bonds. Development of bond market in Bangladesh is the need of the hour as it provides alternative savings instruments for people and can promote higher investment and growth in the economy by mobilizing untapped resources. In addition it provides benchmarking for long-term lending and opportunity for diversifying financial institutions’ portfolios. The bond market in Bangladesh has been found very inefficient with respect to number of issues, volume of trade, number of participants, long-term yield curve, etc. In view of this, the present study has been undertaken aiming at exploring the potentiality of bond market development in Bangladesh, and identifying the problems that impedes the growth and development of bond market in Bangladesh. There are many factors in our economy to boost an effective bond market; some of the important factors are: consistent GDP growth rate, GoB budget deficit, significant role of private sector in credit disbursement, declining ability of state controlled banks to fund industrial loans, moderate inflation and exchange rate, huge fund of insurance companies, increasing investors confidence on the capital market, and benefits of bond market participants, etc. The study has found that the size of debt market in Bangladesh is very low as compared to other countries; has huge growth potentiality; and identified important impediments to the growth and development of bond market in Bangladesh such as large size of market lot of bonds, low interest rates of bonds, long term maturity of bonds, lack of strength of primary dealers, unaccountable trustees, default culture of the issuers, lack of corporate governance practices, dearth of expertise in credit rating, lack of awareness among the market participants and investors, high cost of trading in secondary markets, and no benchmark yield curve, etc. The study has suggested some important measures to overcome these constraints.